Thinking inside the box.
The other day I received an oddly shaped package in the mail. I didn’t recognize the company name and couldn’t think of anything I had ordered that would come in a package that shape and size. So naturally I was curious and ripped the package open right there in the driveway.
When I opened it, there was some paperwork in it but of course I went straight for the “thing” inside. I pulled out this strange plastic tray with bumps and nobs. “Oh!” I thought. “Someone has sent me a sample chocolate mold! Cool!” But it was very flimsy and had gotten kind of crushed in the mail. So I started popping out the indents and thought “Ugh. I would not order this”.
About this time my eldest son came by and asked “What’s that?” So I told him. “Someone sent me a sample mold, but it’s pretty chintzy.” He picked up the package that I had discarded and told me there was something else inside. Yea! More free stuff! When I asked what was, he held up a very nice pen. Huh. That’s odd. Then he read the paper… “Oh, it’s a free pen sample with your business info on it. There is an order form to order more.” “Then what the heck is this?” I asked, holding up the chintzy mold. “It must just be their version of bubble wrap” he replied. Oh my gosh. Did I feel like a tool!!
We laughed a bit about how I was more excited about the packaging then the pen. And I reminisced about how he used to do that as a child too. “I could have just bought you the box for Christmas!” was a common phrase when he was young.
Inside, my youngest son was opening his newest fidget spinners. (Ugh, these things are driving me nuts). Being a typical 8 year old, he just left all the packaging laying on the table. So I went over to clean that up, and low-and-behold, there was another chintzy chocolate mold!! For fidget spinners!! So I spent an afternoon making chocolate fidget spinners for the boys and their friends. And I used the other chintzy tray to make nobs for the spinners so that they could actually spin, kind of.
Do you ever look at packaging and see potential uses for it? I bet you will now. 🙂
